Word.ws English Dictionary

cockfeather

cockfeather noun: feather on an arrow.

Noun

cockfeather (plural cockfeathers)

  1. Feather on an arrow.
    • Fearing the action of the wind upon such light shafts if unfledged, the archer inserts into the cloven end three or four feathers, the cockfeather being as in Europe perpendicular when the arrow is notched.1859, The Journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London, page 379
    • Put the arrow-nock on the string, at the place marked for it, with the cockfeather out to the left.1879, Maurice Thompson, The Witchery of Archery
  2. Tailfeather of a cock.
    • The human hair ornament on this man's shoulders is old, but the cockfeather ornaments on his wrist and ankles appear to be a late innovation.1973, Terence Barrow, Art and Life in Polynesia, page 23
    • Zehetner carried his head higher, and on his hat he wore a cockfeather.1977, Jura Soyfer, Horst Jarka, The Legacy of Jura Soyfer, 1912-1939, page 103

Examples of cockfeather in a sentence

  • When you nock the arrow in the bowstring, turn it so the cockfeather is away from the bow to prevent its being damaged when passing the bow.1957 March, Corky Johnson, “Hunting with Bow and Arrow”, in Boys' Life, volume 47, number 3, page 17:
  • His flat velvet cap, plum-coloured, is plumed with a great cockfeather, more bailiff than butcher.1999, Robert Nye, The Late Mr. Shakespeare:
  • The Hungarian shaman pins a cockfeather in his hair to facilitate his journey to the “other world.”2001 ·, Marcell Jankovics, Book of the Sun, page 122:

Forms of cockfeather

pluralcockfeathers

Questions about cockfeather

What does cockfeather mean?
Cockfeather means feather on an arrow.
How do you use cockfeather in a sentence?
When you nock the arrow in the bowstring, turn it so the cockfeather is away from the bow to prevent its being damaged when passing the bow.
What part of speech is cockfeather?
Cockfeather is a noun.
What is the plural of cockfeather?
The plural of cockfeather is cockfeathers.

Words near cockfeather in the dictionary

  1. Cockeysville
  2. cockface
  3. cockfaces
  4. cockfag
  5. cockfags
  6. cockfeather
  7. cockfeathers
  8. Cockfield
  9. Cockfields
  10. cockfight
  11. cockfighter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cockfeather (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cockfeather.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cockfeather. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.